President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Singapore on Saturday has undermined Taiwan’s sovereignty and breached the “status quo,” pro-localization civic associations, including the World Taiwanese Congress said yesterday.
Taiwan Nation Alliance chairman Wu Shu-min (吳樹民) condemned the Ma-Xi meeting.
“Ever since Ma assumed office, he has tirelessly promoted the fabricated ‘1992 consensus’ and ‘one-China, two expressions,’ while in reality dreaming of meeting Xi and fantasizing about winning a Nobel Peace Prize,” Wu said.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
“Ma wanted to arrange the meeting with Xi before his term of office comes to an end, and he was willing to ignore the democratic process and employ underhand methods to achieve this. It was not until Wednesday last week, when the media made the shocking revelation that Ma was going to Singapore to meet Xi on Saturday, that Ma was finally compelled to go public with the announcement,” Wu said.
“The alliance strongly condemns this blatant violation of democratic procedures and declares that it does not recognize any consensus announced by the Ma-Xi meeting,” he said.
World Taiwanese Congress chairperson Susan Chang (程韻如) said that with Ma’s effort to secure a “legacy” for himself, he had sacrificed the Taiwanese “right to self-determination,” and forced cross-strait relations to proceed under the “1992 consensus,” resulting in the erosion of Taiwan’s standing in the international community.
“The legacy Ma made for himself is a betrayal of Taiwanese, and the destruction of the Republic of China,” World Taiwanese Congress secretary-general Wang Kang-hou (王康厚) said.
Wu said that the KMT government, in print and digital media, had endeavored to obscure the reality of Taiwan’s status by creating false narratives on what the “status quo” constitutes.
“The alliance reiterates that the ‘status quo’ that we pledge to maintain is defined by the following: Taiwan is a sovereign and independent nation; No relationship of [sovereign] possession exists between Taiwan and China; Taiwan is free and democratic, and that the Taiwan Strait must remain peaceable and stable,” he said.
Former Mainland Affairs Chairman Su Chi (蘇起) said in 2006 that he made up the term “1992 consensus in 2000.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
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